Jose Saramago
Jose Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE, was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor. Harold Bloom described Saramago as "the greatest living novelist" and considers him to be "a permanent part of the Western canon", while James Wood praises "the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone...
NationalityPortuguese
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth16 November 1922
CountryPortugal
Earthenware is like people, it needs to be well treated.
That is the dream of all novelists-that one of their characters will become 'somebody.'
The wisest man I ever knew in my whole life could not read or write.
I believe that I've been asked all possible questions. I, myself, if I were a journalist, would not know what to ask me.
I'm not pessimistic. It is the world that is terrible. How can we be optimistic in the face of a planet where people live so badly, nature is being destroyed and the dominant empire is money?
I am the same person I was before receiving the Nobel Prize. I work with the same regularity, I have not modified my habits, I have the same friends.
I am a better novelist than a poet, playwright, or essayist.
I am traveling less in order to be able to write more. I select my travel destinations according to their degree of usefulness to my work.
The attitude of insolent haughtiness is characteristic of the relationships Americans form with what is alien to them, with others.
Americans have discovered fear.
Abstention means you stayed at home or went to the beach. By casting a blank vote, you're saying you have a political conscience but you don't agree with any of the existing parties.
I can't imagine myself outside any kind of social or political involvement.
Society has to change, but the political powers we have at the moment are not enough to effect this change. The whole democratic system would have to be rethought.
I had no books at home. I started to frequent a public library in Lisbon. It was there, with no help except curiosity and the will to learn, that my taste for reading developed and was refined.